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<title>SNeRG:  Ontological Mediation</title>
<!WA0><IMG SRC="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~aec/OM/om.gif"><H2>Ontological Mediation</H2>

<p><strong>This page is under construction.</strong>

<p><em>Abstract</em> 

<p> An <em>ontological mediator</em> is an intelligent agent capable of
facilitating communication between other agents who use the same
communication protocols, but use their common language in different
ways.  Different knowlege agents employ different <em>ontologies</em>,
or ways of taxonomizing and constraining their domains.  When two
agents are using different ontologies, communication cannot occur
unless the agents can agree on the meaning of words and phrases.
Often, they cannot, or they do not have the capability to hold such a
conversation.  A mediator is actively involved in understanding the
content of the messages sent between communicating agents, and will
use knowledge in its domain of mediation to determine where conflicts
arise, learn the meanings of new words, translate expressions
appropriately, and expand the ontologies of both communicating agents.
Our research project is exploring various issues in ontologies,
knowledge sharing, vocabulary acquisition, and distributed databases,
and we are building an ontological mediator.

<p>Ontological Mediation is a new project in the <!WA1><A
HREF="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/pub/sneps/WWW">SNePS Research
Group</A> in the <!WA2><A HREF="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/">Department of
Computer Science</A> at the <!WA3><A HREF="http://wings.buffalo.edu">State
University of New York at Buffalo.</A> It is supported in part by Rome
Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under USAF
contract F30602-93-C-0177. The views and conclusions are the authors'
and should not be interpreted as the official opinion or conclusions
of the US Government, the USAF, Rome Laboratory, or ARPA.

<hr> 
Click <!WA4><A HREF="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~aec/OM/om.ps">here</A> for a postscript copy of
the latest draft version of our paper: "Ontological Mediation: An
Analysis" (unpublished, 166K)

<hr>
<H3>Personnel:</H3>
<ul>
<li> <!WA5><A HREF="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/pub/WWW/faculty/shapiro/shapiro.html">Stuart C. Shapiro</A>
<li> <!WA6><A HREF="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~aec">Alistair E. Campbell</A>
</ul>

<hr>
<H3>Some Relevant Web Pages:</H3>
<ul>
<li> <!WA7><A HREF="http://WWW-KSL.Stanford.EDU:80/knowledge-sharing/">Knowledge Sharing Effort public library</A>
<li> <!WA8><A HREF="http://WWW-KSL.Stanford.EDU:80/knowledge-sharing/agents.html">Agents and Mediators</A>
<li> <!WA9><A HREF="http://retriever.cs.umbc.edu/kqml/">KQML: Knowledge Query & Manipulation Language</A>
<li> <!WA10><A HREF="http://logic.stanford.edu/knowledge.html">Knowledge Sharing -- Stanford Logic Group</A>
<li> <!WA11><A HREF="http://logic.stanford.edu/kif.html">KIF: Knowledge Interchange Format</A>
<li> <!WA12><A HREF="http://www-ksl-svc.stanford.edu:5915">Stanford KSL Network Services</A>

</ul>

<hr>
<!WA13><A HREF="http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/pub/sneps/WWW">Go back to the SNeRG Home Page</A>

<hr>
<address>Alistair E. Campbell(aec@cs.buffalo.edu)</address>


